Indore: Digital marketing company co-founder, CGO held for credit card fraud

Indore: The state cyber cell on Wednesday arrested co-founder and chief growth officer of a digital marketing company for duping a man using his credit card details online. The accused were involved in buying credit and debit card details from a Russian hacker to steal money from the cards without OTP.

Superintendent of Police (cyber cell) Jitendra Singh said Anoop Kumar Tiwari, a resident of Shriji Valley Township, had lodged a complaint in December 2019 that a transaction of Rs 21,188 was made from his credit card without sharing one time password. Thus, the money was stolen. A case under relevant provisions of IPC and IT Act was registered by cyber cell, Bhopal. Inspector Rashid Ahmed of city cyber cell was asked to undertake investigation.

During the investigation and cyber surveillance, the officials came to know that the transaction was made by an employee of Roaring Wolf Media Pvt Ltd. Later, a team was formed by SP Singh and sent it to arrest the accused.

The team searched him in Saket Nagar, Saikripa Colony and Shekhar Central. Finally, the team arrested Chirag Elawadhi, co-founder and CEO of the company and its chief growth officer Mukul Kumar. The accused told cyber officials that they run a digital marketing company, which works to advertise the contents of companies and people through social media. Similarly, the company also increases the likes and followers of social media users. The accused have to pay to service provider to broadcast or publish the advertisement.

The accused used to pay the amount to service provider from their own accounts or by searching the credit card data from the underground online sites. On this type of website, the credit or debit card data of millions of people were bought and sold. They used to buy debit or credit card data using bitcoin. Two laptops used in the crime and the data of credit and debit card were recovered from the accused.

SP Singh said that accused Chirag hails from Hisar in Haryana while accused Mukul hails from UP. Both of them were staying in Saket Nagar.